Thread Roulette: Listening

Sean didn’t make a habit of visiting the student lounge, as it was intended to be a safe space, a peer space, for the students. While it wasn’t forbidden for faculty to enter the room (unlike the reverse of students entering the faculty lounge), he did want them to have the space to themselves unless otherwise necessary.

However, as the psychiatrist had passed by the student lounge, on his way back to his office after brewing himself a fresh mug of coffee, he overheard something distressing. Mental shouting, which was peculiar, since few people actually shouted in their minds.

However, it was...off, as though distorted through a filter.

While it was apparent that the cause of the shouting, whatever it was, wasn’t located in the student lounge, the conduit was. That was enough to warrant investigation, as it was a starting point for Sean to find out what was the matter and who was involved.

As such, the psychiatrist opened the door to the student lounge, stepped inside, and looked around. He found only Elina inside, legs dangling over the edge of the sofa. She certainly looked fine. In fact, she had a smile on her lips.

Still, he had to ask, “Is everything all right?”

Sean tried to respect the privacy of the students, and if this had been a student’s dormitory, he most certainly would have knocked first. He would have waited for permission to enter as well, in a typical situation, although he was concerned about the shouting he had heard. However, this wasn’t a dormitory room; it was the student lounge, and while he still tried to give the students a sense of sanctuary in their lounge, the room was more public and not afforded the same need for permission to enter.

The same with the classrooms; he tried to give teachers control over their classrooms, but if he had business, he entered without knocking.

The greater concern was the fact that she was alone. But he had, in fact, heard the arguing clear as day. And if he was forty years younger, he would assume that this was a telepathic slipup, he’d had near-perfect control for far too long to assume that.

Which meant that the most likely explanation was someone else’s powers, either a deliberate use or a slipup. But the girl on the sofa wasn’t a telepath.

“I heard shouting,” he explained, since there was no reason for him to be rude, and there was also no reason to lie. He had legitimate cause to be in the lounge, and he had the authority as well.

Sean had access to all of the student files, as a result of his position at Hammel. But as he kept tabs on his patients more than anyone else, followed by those students who were sent to his office for discipline, by his protégés, and by anyone who possessed an ability with which he thought he might be able to help, or at least wanted to watch, he knew some files far better than others. He knew of Elina, but she hadn’t found her way to his office, and so he couldn’t immediately find details about her in his memory, as he’d had no reason to memorize her file.

Although based on the next words to leave her lips, she might find herself there soon enough. The psychiatrist did not appreciate being toyed with.

“I’m quite sure,” he replied, tone serious.

She wasn’t a telepath; of that he was certain, since he knew all of the Hammel telepaths, and he also didn’t feel her telepathy. But he was also certain that she was the conduit of whatever he had heard.

He didn’t react to super-enhanced perception in the same way; he didn’t overhear what James heard, so that couldn’t be her ability. It had to be something mental. There was a shortlist.

ESP, perhaps. Clairaudience. An extra-dimensional sense, perhaps. Possibly auditory illusions but since the psychiatrist was shielding, it couldn’t be the last one.

Whatever it was, she was most certainly eavesdropping. Because if it was unintentional, then she wouldn’t feign obliviousness.

Shaking his head a single time, Sean said, “I’m sure you know better than to speak that way to someone. I’m also quite sure that you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Sean was prepared to explain that there was a large distance between being told to hold one’s tongue and stifle one’s mind and not being deliberately rude to another person. However, he decided that rather than engaging in a lecture with little other direction, it was best to simply reach the heart of that matter.

To that end, he lowered his mental shields a fraction.

In doing so, he heard enough to confirm that he had been in the right frame of mind. And to cross all of the incorrect hypotheses off his list.

Clairaudience it was, after all.

In one sense, Sean understood the difficulties in turning off another sense, and he recognized that it was largely impossible to do completely. In another sense, he believed in a degree of transparency. He also didn’t believe in listening to people for salacious details, gossip, or purely personal gain.

He also didn’t believe in gas-lighting other people. In fact, he was particularly sensitive to it.

Maintaining eye contact with her, he said, “You know very well what I’m talking about,” and to illustrate that, he tapped his temple with an index finger. “And this type of behavior is insidious precisely because you think it’s all in good fun. I trust that you won’t try it with anyone else, unless you want to spend an hour in my office.”

He didn’t believe in purely punitive punishments; he also believed in second chances. Hence his deliberate phrasing.

“That isn’t what I was discussing,” the psychiatrist informed her. The fact that she failed to understand why her behavior was troubling only indicated to him that she was in need of a discussion on the matter. Or that Hammel needed to reprint its Code of Conduct to remind people of what fair treatment and courtesy actually entailed. “Lying to manipulate people is wholly unacceptable, and it’s inherently cruel.”

Sean didn’t tolerate that behavior directed at any students or faculty. And while he didn’t take the behavior personally when directed towards him – in that he didn’t think she did it from a sense of malice towards him in particular – it still remained unacceptable. With more sensitive students, it was an effective form of manipulation that could make them fear for their own sanity.

The psychiatrist had particular concern for anyone in that situation.

His hands moved from his sides behind his back, assuming what was a relaxed but composed position for him. And what military members considered “parade rest.”

“This isn’t about what other people here. This is about toying with people for fun. Every person has valid needs and emotions and should be treated as such. Not everything that seems fun is in the broader context.”

Her continued protests only confirmed that they were having two separate discussions. For some reason, he remark about lying had failed to permeate. Sean would hold fast in that. “I’m not asking you to turn off your powers.” His telepathy functioned similarly, and he didn’t think she should never be able to hear. But the existence of a power did not excuse him, her, or anyone else from exercising judiciousness and maintaining ethics in usage. Having powers didn’t allow people to take pleasure in the pain and discomfort of others. “But you shouldn’t lie, or pretend not to know what people are discussing. You need to own your powers, and behave like an adult.”

They would see if that point took root.

“No, actually, I never did.” While that could sound like the typical protest of an adult who had no desire to own his mistakes and past conduct, in Sean’s case, it was true. He didn’t consider pranks inherently harmless, and that only a few bad eggs went too far. He thought that pranks were predicated on cruelty, on the notion of taking pleasure and finding humor in another person’s distress, and, while some pranks were worse than others, none were acceptable, and thus all were to be avoided.

The telepath was open about his past conduct, if it was appropriate to discuss. He certainly never lied about his youthful exploits; he would never tell someone that he had never protested or that he had never smoked marijuana, if it came up in conversation. Just as he wouldn’t lie about drinking now. He hadn’t drunk under age, but the drinking age was also eighteen when he had been in college.